'I thought I was seeing Shatrughan'

I thought I was seeing Shatrughan Sinha sitting in the front row of the treasury benches when I first stepped into the press gallery as a rookie journalist to cover my first-ever session of the Maharashtra Assembly.

I thought I was seeing Shatrughan Sinha sitting in the front row of the treasury benches when I first stepped into the press gallery as a rookie journalist to cover my first-ever session of the Maharashtra Assembly.

I was both confused and excited until a veteran of many decades pointed out that the man was not the actor but the minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh. Later when I mentioned that to him, he laughed, "I have been told that before. You are not the only one."

That was the start of an easy rapport with a minister who never forgot to personally invite an insignificant, nameless journalist - I worked for an agency at the time and no one could remember our names as we did not have 'bylines' - to any event or press conference even in the days of poor communication technology.

Over the years, I discovered that Vilasrao was one politician who would not insult your intelligence by fobbing you off with lies or clearly misleading comments about any contentious issue. A call to him for a reaction would never go unrewarded, he would at least offer a cautious comment that would satisfy both the reporter and his own need not to invite a controversy.

That is what happened when I called him barely three weeks ago to ask why Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar was throwing a tantrum about his position in the cabinet. All other politicians had abruptly terminated the conversation when they realised I wanted them on the record and wouldn't pick up my subsequent calls. Deshmukh though told me why without quite saying why -- and that made my story.

In that sense, Deshmukh was more courageous than most other leaders, and it was a fact appreciated by even Pawar who once told me the only Congress leader who can come close to him as an artful campaigner was Vilasrao.

Deshmukh was delighted when I told him that later. I am sure Deshmukh's loss to the Congress will equal that of YSR Reddy's in Andhra Pradesh because no one else in the party quite knows Maharashtra as well as he did.